Anyone feel like Kozaki is the perfect Fire Emblem character designer?

[HeartTranquil]

My opinion on this is that Yusuke Kozaki's artsyle doesn't really look overly MOEish. It actually looks like anime with a touch of realism. A nose isn't just a dot, the lip/mouth isn't just a single line, etc.

I really liked the the mature character designs of No More Heroes series and I feel like the art is one of the major points which dream me into FEA.

What do you think?

[Rewjeo]

Comparing Camilla to this I'm not really sure where the "realism" is supposed to come in. I mean, I suppose the humans all have basic human features?

[Ambulz]

For all of the complaints about the designs for Awakening and now If, it could honestly be much worse. I think the best visual aesthetic probably goes to the Tellius games, but I do like Kozaki's work a lot. Probably second best, imo.

[RJWalker]

Nope. I rank him bottom tier. Over designed garbage trying to compensate.

[Anacybele]

lol no, Kozaki is NOT the perfect artist for this series. Too many impractical and ugly designs. I admit I like some of his male designs, but his females... Yeah, just go compare Camilla or Aversa to some Tellius characters, particularly Petrine.

[goodperson707]

Uh i dont know much about this topic. But is kozaki the or the artist or the art supovisor designer ect.. Cause i dont think the artist gets to chose the designs. and even then class design which awakening sticks to for outfits in the main art , might come from someone else.

[Rewjeo]

For all of the complaints about the designs for Awakening and now If, it could honestly be much worse.

It could always be SMTxFE, I suppose.

[VincentASM]

I personally really like Kozaki's Fire Emblem artwork and I'm happy he's back for this game. However I'm not really sure if it's a "perfect" fit for the Fire Emblem series.

I think Senri Kita was/is probably the best Fire Emblem artist so far. Her artwork was really nice and had next to no complaints. That said, I think one of Fire Emblem's qualities is how it keeps changing, so it's probably for the best we've moved on.

Worse fit probably goes to Shirou Masamune; his artwork is incredibly detailed and styled, but totally not Fire Emblem.

Edited April 6, 2015 by VincentASM

[BrandedRogue]

The awakening and if styles just lack the realism the tellius style had. But I do like the designs for if better than the awakening ones. Camilla's outfit could have been a pretty awesome if they just kept it more realistic and less fanservice.

[Rapier]

I like FE10's art style much more than I like Awakening's. Not that the latter is bad, by all means.

someone hire the porn artist who draw Celica to be the new FE artist

[B.Leu]

Comparing Camilla to this I'm not really sure where the "realism" is supposed to come in. I mean, I suppose the humans all have basic human features?

It's kind of jarring when this is actually way more realistic than Kozaki's design. When again, for me, only the colors of her armor is unrealistic.

For me FE10/FE9 had the best design, with close second FE8.

You know Camilla is pretty tame compared to Awakening's Toilet-Cavaliers, Palpatine-Knights, Crowned-Heroes, whatever Aversa is supposed to be, and some other headaches.

In fact, I think that all of If's new characters are good compared to that, that's must explain why me and other people don't complain much about it.

Did I mention that I don't like Kozaki's design ? Well, I know he apparently didn't designed the armor, but you see what I mean.

It's also the kind of design that you'll see in a lot of JRPG, like the recent Tales of. Which I don't like much too btw.

Edited April 6, 2015 by B.Leu

[Thor Odinson]

Camilla's worse by means of the bottom-half really I mean have you looked at the bottom half it's a goddamn mess that can't even be called good by fanservice standards

If by perfect you mean "sometimes competent other times wtf u doing" then sure, but otherwise he's not perfect. His quality of output is inconsistent. It's unfair to call him entirely trash when he's made a number of good designs, but on the other hand, perfect is reserved for artists who can 100% of the time come up with a design that is at least well put together since taste can be subjective but color theory and visual coherency isn't and Kozaki doesn't quite cut it especially in the latter department. His colors are generally good, however.

[goodperson707]

So did kozaki design the class designs or not? Im getting mixed signals form people on this. Anyone with a definite answer would be Appreciated. Because if he didn't make the class designs then why are people complaining about him for the art when all OA is based on thier class design expect for most of the heads.

[Book of Ereshkigal]

So did kozaki design the class designs or not? Im getting mixed signals form people on this. Anyone with a definite answer would be Appreciated. Because if he didn't make the class designs then why are people complaining about him for the art when all OA is based on thier class design expect for most of the heads.

He mentioned in an interview, specifially,

Just wondering, which character in FE:A was your favorite to design? Also, what was your primary inspiration for the design of armored characters (e.g Social Knights and especially Armor Knights)?

Lucina. For the armored charcters, the art director designed the armor, and I designed the characters in the armor.

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/04/01/fire-emblem-awakening-and-no-more-heroes-artist-answers-fan-questions/

So in some cases, he did, some cases he did not.

He mentions this in another interview, but this one was easier to dig up...

EDIT: Forgot to say, I like Sacred Stone's design and art, though I'm not sure if the artist did the designing there. Por/RD's art is a close-ish second to me.

Edited April 6, 2015 by L95

[goodperson707]

Okay now i just need to know what his definition of armour is? And what classes count.

[Thor Odinson]

So did kozaki design the class designs or not? Im getting mixed signals form people on this. Anyone with a definite answer would be Appreciated. Because if he didn't make the class designs then why are people complaining about him for the art when all OA is based on thier class design expect for most of the heads.

Because he's shown to be able to take quite a bit of liberties (positively) for character specific things, but chose not to on certain characters it'd have made sense on. Frederick was a good example of liberties he's taken and sometimes done well with; Hell, Cherche's back aside, she wears this kind of legging type thing that, while showing leg, still covers the inner thighs, which isn't a part of the design on normal female wyvern riders. Aversa looks significantly different from standard dark flier, etc. I don't think it was too much to ask to have Sully wear pants, especially when her Great Knight model (surprisingly, considering the standard) actually does have pants, but it would have been a reasonable liberty taken considering her character (mounted knight serious about martial arts and being a mounted knight) that would not have deviated much from the class designs.

I don't blame him for a specific classes looking certain ways, but he does have quite a bit of liberty with the designs with the characters, and sometimes he uses those liberties well, but other times he doesn't.

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Okay now i just need to know what his definition of armour is? And what classes count.

Just wondering, which character in FE:A was your favorite to design? Also, what was your primary inspiration for the design of armored characters (e.g Social Knights and especially Armor Knights)?

[NoirCore]

In my opinion, I prefer the slightly less realistic art styles of the GBA and Tellius games, specifically PoR (although I really like how Kozaki made the manakete ears grooved on their bottom sides :D). I don't have an issue with Kozaki's art style, however. Also, it seems to me like IS changes artists once in awhile to keep FE looking fresh.

Of course, I do find some of the character designs in Awakening rather "uhh..." to me, such as adult Tiki's large breasts and not-so-covering dress (the design of the dress is nice, but I feel it should have covered more than it does), as well as the large knight armor pads and revealing dark mage outfits (I prefer the shaman hoods). But then there's stuff like Robin's robe, the mage hats (I'm not a big fan of the S/NES/GBA/DS mage designs), and the fact that wyverns are actually wyverns that I really love. Thus, Kozaki has a mixed opinion from me.

[Anacybele]

Because he's shown to be able to take quite a bit of liberties (positively) for character specific things, but chose not to on certain characters it'd have made sense on. Frederick was a good example of liberties he's taken and sometimes done well with;

Yes! Frederick is my favorite design in Awakening because he actually just has Tellius levels of awesome. Freddy has cool armor that's practical for him at the same time (although I do wonder how he can walk in that foot armor. Maybe we're just seeing it at a bad angle, because he walks and runs somehow since we see him do so during dialogue scenes) and he looks just like his job says he is. A knight that doubles as a butler-like servant. He has that dressy shirt and bowtie and those dressy pants underneath all that armor. The only thing about the design that weirded me out was Freddy's crotch since it's kind of...out there. But those tight pants will do that to a man's parts, I suppose. xP I wonder if this played any role in causing the conception of his child if he married...

But yeah, Freddy's design is just one of many reasons I liked him so much.

Because of this I question how Kozaki could make designs like him, but not apply the same awesomeness and practicality to those sexualized and dumb-looking females.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Anacybele

[goodperson707]

Just wondering, which character in FE:A was your favorite to design? Also, what was your primary inspiration for the design of armored characters (e.g Social Knights and especially Armor Knights)?

well yes i know that but thats the interviewers definition. what was his and IS definition of armour Eg Heroes, wyvrens riders ect.

[Sentacotus]

I think Kozaki's designs are decent. I like how he makes the main characters and lords look the best. Actually, my biggest gripe with his art style is not with the females but with the damn Generals and Knights looking like they have mini heads and the armor just looking weird in comparison to how Tellius did it. I could also do without the arm shield on Heros either get rid of them or just give them a normal traditional shield like in the GBA games.

Edited April 6, 2015 by LordTaco42

[goodperson707]

Well the armour for cavs and generals at least was said in an interview to not be Kozaki.

[Book of Ereshkigal]

The generic Great knight... I don't even. That helmet.

[Ownagepuffs]

I love the way his characters look. Just their designs. Like without the clothes.

His more realistic style is very aesthetically pleasing. But when you get to the clothes all hell breaks loose. He's done really good male designs (Ryo and Marx are fucking badass) but I really wish he'd stop drawing females with his penis.

[Twylis]

I'd say Kozaki's my definite favourite FE artist, yeah (or at least tied with Sachiko Wada of SS). I don't really agree with the complaints of fanservice-y designs considering how few of his female characters actually have noticeably fanservice-y designs - there's what, Tharja, Nowi, Olivia, Panne, and Aversa? Maybe Cherche and Tiki? And most of those are non-melee or transformation classes, so armour wouldn't be particularly important to them in the first place. Every other female character's dressed fine, with Lucina - the lead female - probably being the most modestly dressed female character in the series.

There's also skimpy male outfits like Vaike, Basilio, and Yarne as well, so it's not a female-exclusive thing either.

That said, I do quite dislike Camilla's design, but that's one poor design out of several excellent ones so I'm not terribly concerned.

Stylistically, I adore his colouring style, as the shading is much more dynamic and contrast-y than most, and I feel the desaturated hair colours look substantially better in the setting. And some of the outfit designs may seem odd, but I find them far more memorable than what, say, the Tellius games had (I happen to love stuff like the Hero's arm shield, for example). I will concede the Knights and Generals look rather dumb, though, but as mentioned, that likely wasn't Kozaki's doing.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Twylis